Learning Dvorak – Days 17-18

Finished up round 2 of the alphabet with the Dvorak keyboard at just a hair under 20 wpm.

I’m officially quitting this project today. I learned the keyboard, but I don’t think that this is something worth pursuing. I may play with Dvorak once in a while for fun, but I do not think I can sufficiently “unlearn” the qwerty keyboard without abandoning it completely.

And, well, I have things to do. A lot of them involve typing and so I NEED to type 60+ wpm in my daily activities. I can’t afford to spend 2-3 weeks, or 2-3 months relearning the keyboard. At the same time, to really get good at Dvorak, I think that you probably need to switch over completely – not just for an hour of so of daily practice, but for everything.

I haven’t found a reason to be that committed to this other keyboard layout… even if it were not for the fact that it’s non-standard and so there would be problems using other people’s computers/keyboards or letting them use yours. As a programmer, collaboration on the job often requires that kind of sharing.

My end conclusion is that using the Dvorak keyboard is kind of like learning a cool magic trick… fun, but not very useful. At best you may impress a few friends with your magic skills, but you probably will not end up typing any faster than you would if you spent the same amount of time learning touch typing and practicing with the standard keyboard.